My experience looking to join Mastodon instances (after the FB whistle blower a few years ago) was very similar. I ended up in a large “more general” instance, ignoring the local feed in favor of my home feed. I slowly built up my follows and now I feel right at home, but that was a process… as opposed to, say, when I signed up for Twitter ten-ish years ago where an algorithm held my hand for days or weeks until it figured out what it could sell me. I think OP is really onto something, so they’ve got my attention and my up vote.